Nameless
by faerimagic
Summary: A one-shot. . I feel a bit iffy about this...


_ The man shot the green-haired girl in the forehead, though he had been aiming for the black-haired boy she had been protecting._

"_Don't shoot him!" She had yelled, before she had sunk down to the ground._

_The gunshot had attracted unwanted attention._

"_Hey! Someone's dead!" called a bewildered child._

"_Just some elevens, huh?" said the man. "Kill them."_

_His subordinate aimed his gun._

_The child widened his eyes in terror before turning to flee, before feeling the bullet in his back._

"Go back to the ghetto where you belong!" he said. I flinched and continued walking.

I watched until I had reached a lonely fountain and I began to release my tears.

Ghetto. Lowlife. Racial terms had been thrown upon me ever since I joined this school. All because…I was Japanese.

This school was safe, believe it or not. More safer than home, actually.

It was a school where I would hide until the war was over. My parents were too old. My brother was too young. I was the only one in our family with the right age to seek this safe haven.

I was in my dorm, doing my homework when the phone rang. I wish it had never rang.

"Hello?"

"It's your brother." My mother sobbed. I instantly froze with fear. "He was shot by a Britannian. He's…dead."

"You're…you're…joking…right?" I said. "He's only seven…he can't die...right?"

But her tears were too real. And so were mine.

I felt the phone slip out of my hand. It can't be. I promised I would play Go with him.

That may have seemed unimportant to someone else, but it was important. To me.

He sucked at other games. Soccer, basketball, Old Maid, he lost at all of them. All…except Go.

He was a growing genius. I could see, _feel_, the potential he had.

Of course, go was outlawed by the Britannians, as a way to suppress Japanese culture, but we secretly carried on the game, nonetheless.

_Go is about how much territory you get. _he said. _But if you get too aggressive, you may be careless and not think things through. If you are being too defensive, you don't get that much territory. That's why I like Go. There is a balance._

_Everyone likes to be black because they get the first attack. _He said._ That's so overrated. I like white, because you get the first response._

_How would you know which is better? _I said._ You're only seven._

_So? Who cares?_

He had beaten the pants off of everyone. Everyone that is, except me.

"I'll beat you next time!" he promised earnestly. We waited eagerly for the next break off of my school so he could fulfill his promise.

He never did.

He never would again.

I had my head down in art class. I could hear the whispers circulating as the students began to sit down for the class to begin.

"Did you hear? Her brother died."

"Really? That's so sad!"

"So? Who cares?"

"Yeah. She's just an eleven. Who cares if some eleven dies?"

The project for that day was to create a person doing something ordinary, and yet, make it something meaningful.

It was a class with a majority of Britannians.

As such, they got the supplies with the best quality.

Us elevens got the crappy ones. We did not dare complain.

Usually I didn't even try to make something worthwhile in art class; it would probably be failed no matter how good it was. But today, I didn't care about grades.

I had a stained canvas. It was an orange-brown blob that looked it had been there for a while. Probably a coffee spill or something.

I penciled in the figure, then inked it, and then watercolored it. I added a touch of pastel.

When I stepped back, I almost cried.

There was my brother, playing Go. The background was a scenery of lush meadow flowers. He was smiling at me. He was…transparent. I could see the layer of flowers right through him. I had turned the stain into a goban.

He was holding a bright white stone in his hand, and I was glad he was able to play after death.

I really did cry.

"Pitiful." Said a voice. "The blue you used for the sky is too light. The grass is too furry. The person has too wide a smile. The clouds look like cotton. The skin is too transparent, it looks like a ghost. The person is also ugly, it looks like an eleven. And to top it all off, you have an illegal Go board in there." My teacher wrote in his notebook. "F."

"Listen up, class. Here is an example of what NOT to do." He made a mocking sweeping gesture towards my painting. "Now, look at this prime example here." He walked towards another painting. It showed a woman in blond hair, hanging up the Britannian flag. It looked so generic and unoriginal. "This is what you must aim to do. Get tips from this young lady here." He patted the artist's shoulder. "She's a genius."

The girl smiled a sardonic smile towards me.

I stood up.

"What is it?" the teacher asked me, annoyed. I grabbed my canvas and supplies and dumped the supplies onto the teacher's desk, spilling the paint and water onto it.

"What is the meaning of this?" he roared. "You clean this up right now!" I held tightly onto my canvas and left the room.

I was out by the fountain again. Crying, as usual. But how could he say such things? Just because I was an eleven.

I cried harder. Just because I was an eleven, these unfair things were put onto me.

"That's a nice painting." Said a voice.

I looked up in panic, but only saw a brown-haired boy.

"Oh. It's just you." I said. It was Suzaku Kururugi. I didn't care about him. He was Japanese, but he supposedly joined Britannian forces. Sure, I felt betrayed that he abandoned his blood people for a war-loving tribe, but right now, I didn't care for anything. "Thanks." I said flatly as I wiped my tears away unsuccessfully.

"Was that for a project?"

"Yeah."

"What did you get for it?"

"An F."

"Why would you get something like that?" he said, shocked.

I stared at him.

"You know why." I said. "I'm an eleven."

"Oh." He looked uncomfortable. "Sorry, but I forgot your name. What was it again?"

I was slightly annoyed. "I don't use my old name anymore. My new name is Mumei."

"Nameless?" he said.

"Yeah. That's the name I go by now." An eleven. Even worse, a female eleven. I was the lowest of the low. It was much easier to fade into the background. To become Nameless.

I held up the painting and looked at it again, my eyes were threatening to tear up again. "But with my brother, I was always Mei."

"What happened to your brother?"

"He was shot by a Britannian." I said bitterly.

"Oh. I'm sorry, Mei."

I stood up.

"OK, first of all, I don't need your pity. Second of all, DO NOT CALL ME THAT."

"What? Mei?"

"It's MU-mei. MU! Like a COW!"

"No, You're Mei." Suzaku said.

Obviously, he did not listen to a word I was saying. "AUGH!" He was just as annoying as my brother!

He smiled. "You're Mei. Remember that." He walked away.

Mei. Bright. Reliant.

I picked up the painting and looked at it.

"I'm…Mei?" I said…uncertainly.

My brother smiled.


End file.
